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Chemical named entity recognition (NER) models are used in many downstream tasks, from adverse drug reaction identification to pharmacoepidemiology. However, it is unknown whether these models work the same for everyone. Performance disparities can potentially cause harm rather than the intended good. This paper assesses gender-related performance disparities in chemical NER systems. We develop a framework for measuring gender bias in chemical NER models using synthetic data and a newly annotated corpus of over 92,405 words with self-identified gender information from Reddit. Our evaluation of multiple biomedical NER models reveals evident biases. For instance, synthetic data suggests female-related names are frequently misclassified as chemicals, especially for brand name mentions. Additionally, we observe performance disparities between female- and male-associated data in both datasets. Many systems fail to detect contraceptives such as birth control. Our findings emphasize the biases in chemical NER models, urging practitioners to account for these biases in downstream applications.

Background SPX-containing proteins have been known as key players in phosphate signaling and homeostasis. In Arabidopsis and rice, functions of some SPXs have been characterized, but little is known about their function in other plants, especially in the legumes. Results We analyzed SPX gene family evolution in legumes and in a number of key species from algae to angiosperms. We found that SPX harboring proteins showed fluctuations in domain fusions from algae to the angiosperms with, finally, four classes appearing and being retained in the land plants. Despite these fluctuations, Lysine Surface Cluster (KSC), and the third residue of Phosphate Binding Sites (PBS) showed complete conservation in almost all of SPXs except few proteins in Selaginella moellendorffii and Papaver sumniferum, suggesting they might have different ligand preferences. In addition, we found that the WGD/segmentally or dispersed duplication types were the most frequent contributors to the SPX expansion, and that there is a positive correlation between the amount of WGD contribution to the SPX expansion in individual species and its number of EXS genes. We could also reveal that except SPX class genes, other classes lost the collinearity relationships among Arabidopsis and legume genomes. The sub- or neo-functionalization of the duplicated genes in the legumes makes it difficult to find the functional orthologous genes. Therefore, we used two different methods to identify functional orthologs in soybean and Medicago. High variance in the dynamic and spatial expression pattern of GmSPXs proved the new or sub-functionalization in the paralogs. Conclusion This comprehensive analysis revealed how SPX gene family evolved from algae to legumes and also discovered several new domains fused to SPX domain in algae. In addition, we hypothesized that there different phosphate sensing mechanisms might occur in S. moellendorffii and P. sumniferum. Finally, we predicted putative functional orthologs of AtSP

Background SPX-containing proteins have been known as key players in phosphate signaling and homeostasis. In Arabidopsis and rice, functions of some SPXs have been characterized, but little is known about their function in other plants, especially in the legumes. Results We analyzed SPX gene family evolution in legumes and in a number of key species from algae to angiosperms. We found that SPX harboring proteins showed fluctuations in domain fusions from algae to the angiosperms with, finally, four classes appearing and being retained in the land plants. Despite these fluctuations, Lysine Surface Cluster (KSC), and the third residue of Phosphate Binding Sites (PBS) showed complete conservation in almost all of SPXs except few proteins in Selaginella moellendorffii and Papaver sumniferum, suggesting they might have different ligand preferences. In addition, we found that the WGD/segmentally or dispersed duplication types were the most frequent contributors to the SPX expansion, and that there is a positive correlation between the amount of WGD contribution to the SPX expansion in individual species and its number of EXS genes. We could also reveal that except SPX class genes, other classes lost the collinearity relationships among Arabidopsis and legume genomes. The sub- or neo-functionalization of the duplicated genes in the legumes makes it difficult to find the functional orthologous genes. Therefore, we used two different methods to identify functional orthologs in soybean and Medicago. High variance in the dynamic and spatial expression pattern of GmSPXs proved the new or sub-functionalization in the paralogs. Conclusion This comprehensive analysis revealed how SPX gene family evolved from algae to legumes and also discovered several new domains fused to SPX domain in algae. In addition, we hypothesized that there different phosphate sensing mechanisms might occur in S. moellendorffii and P. sumniferum. Finally, we predicted putative functional orthologs of AtSP

Understanding how plants respond to salinity stress is essential for developing tolerant genotypes, to keep human food secure since it is threaten by climate changes and increasing population worldwide. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a crop that possesses various salinity tolerance mechanisms that remain to be explored. In this study, data from an RNA-Seq experiment in barley was analyzed to identify changes in genome activities as well as differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to salinity stress. A gene network was predicted among identified DEGs and was subjected to network topology analysis, which resulted in the prediction of a hub gene, namely low expression of osmotically responsive gene 2 (LOS2). LOS2 and its two hierarchical downstream genes, salt-tolerant zinc finger (ZAT10) and ascorbate peroxidase 1 (APX1), were used in a genome-wide association (GWA) survey to confirm their importance. A field experiment was conducted to recognize susceptible and tolerant genotypes among 10 different barley genotypes based on the principle component analysis (PCA) of stress-related indices. In a separate salinity experiment, two of the genotypes were assessed to assign their physiological and biochemical responses as well as to identify expression profiles of LOS2, ZAT10, and APX1. From the results, the activity of the barley genome was significantly altered toward response to stress. In total, 5692 DEGs were identified and the gene network derived from these genes contained 131 nodes and 257 edges. The identified genotypes clearly showed the difference in water status, osmolyte accumulation, cell membrane damages, and ion homeostasis as well as in expression profiles for studied genes during salinity stress. Our results suggest that LOS2 along with the ZAT10 and APX1 genes may serve as an important part of barley salinity stress tolerance pathways. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the role(s) of LOS2 in barley salinity stress tolerance in a gene net

The bacterial strain MJ01 was isolated from stock tank water of one of the Iranian south oil field production facilities. The 16S rRNA gene of isolate, MJ01, showed 99% similarity to Bacillus subtilis. The results revealed that biosurfactant produced by this strain was lipopeptide-like surfactin based on FTIR analysis. Critical micelle concentration of produced surfactin in distilled water was 0.06 g/l. Wettability study showed that at zero salinity surfactin can change original oil-wet state to water-wet state, but in seawater salinity it cannot modify the wettability significantly. To utilize this biosurfactant in ex situ MEOR process, economical and reservoir engineering technical parameters were considered to introduce a new optimization strategy using the response surface methodology. Comparing the result of this optimization strategy with the previous optimization research works was shown that significant save in use of nutrients is possible by using this medium. Furthermore, using this method leads to less formation damage due to the incompatibility of injecting fluid and formation brine, and less formation damage due to the bioplugging.

Allergens are proteins or glycoproteins which make widespread disorders that can lead to a systemic anaphylactic shock and even death within a short period of time. Understanding the protein features that are involved in allergenicity is important in developing future treatments as well as engineering proteins in genetic transformation projects. A big dataset of 1439 protein features from 761 plant allergens and 7815 non-allergen proteins was constructed. Thereafter, 10 different attribute weighting algorithms were utilized to find the key characteristics differentiating allergens and non-allergen proteins. The frequency of Leu, Arg and Gln selected by different attribute weighting algorithms with more than 50% confidence, including attribute weighting by Weight_Info Gain, Weight Chi Squared, Weight_Gini Index and Weight_Relief. High amount of Gln and low percentage of Leu and Arg discriminate plant allergens from non-allergens

Triticum monococcum has recently drawn the attention of biologists to discover and utilize novel genes and alleles. To explore the molecular features of the genetic network governing floral transition in shoot apical meristem (SAM) of spring growth habit T. monococcum, two expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries containing 3,031 ESTs from vegetative SAM (VS) and 2,647 ESTs from early reproductive SAM (RS) were analyzed. Assembly of ESTs resulted in 2,303 unigenes for VS library (368 contigs and 1,935 singletons) and 1,890 unigenes (337 contigs and 1,553 singletons) for RS library. The 67.05 % of VS unigenes and 66.30 % of RS unigenes showed significant similarity with genes of known, putative and or unknown function, whereas the remaining 32.95 % of the VS unigenes and 33.7 % of RS unigenes displayed no significant match with the public protein database. The 1,064 and 866 unigenes of VS and RS libraries were assigned to functional categories using Pageman ontology tool. Further analysis revealed that the switch from VS to RS caused significant changes in the abundance of unigenes assigned to some functional categories. A total of 37 genes were identified which were significantly differentially expressed between vegetative and reproductive stages of T. monococcum SAM. Investigation of the differentially expressed genes revealed the importance of the genes involved in energy metabolism, ubiquitin/26S proteasome system, polyamines biosynthesis and signaling of reactive oxygen species in SAM differentiation towards floral transition in T. monococcum.

Osmotic stress is one of the major factors that significantly reduce yields in dry areas. Plants respond to this abiotic stress at physiological and molecular levels. Many genes are induced under stress conditions by transcription factors. Dehydration responsive element binding (DREB) protein is a subfamily of AP2/ERF transcription factors which control expression of many osmotic stress-inducible genes. In this study, 21 days old seedlings of Sardari cultivar, dry farming bread wheat transferred into hydroponics culture using Hoagland solution. Osmotic stress treatments performed with adding 100, 200 and 400 g/l poly-ethylene glycol 6000 to hydroponics culture to obtain –0.15, –0.49, and –1.76 MPa water potential, respectively. After the seedlings were withered and colorless, relative water content, dry weight, and photosynthesis measured. In addition, RTPCR, and cDNA sequencing carried out. Molecular analysis of DREB translated protein sequence performed by DNAMAN, BLASTN, Pfam and PROSITE software. Results showed that osmotic stress decreased relative water content, root and shoot dry weight and net photosynthesis rate in comparison to control, significantly (P < 0.05). Sequence alignment indicated 98% homology with other Triticum aestivum DREB protein mRNA. There was an AP2 domain in the translated protein with three -sheets and one -helix and contains the Val14 and Glu19 amino acids. An EST Sequence deposited in NCBI GenBank database with the accession number of ES466900.